


Who waits forever, anyway

by megyal



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-12
Updated: 2009-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:59:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/pseuds/megyal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This had actually been contemplated some time ago and I decided to finish it for the <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/rounds_of_kink/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/rounds_of_kink/"><strong>rounds_of_kink</strong></a> prompt. Dedicated to <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/minttown1/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/minttown1/"><strong>minttown1</strong></a>, who I first got the idea from their prompt from on <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/hard4brains/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/hard4brains/"><strong>hard4brains</strong></a> and <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/evilweevil04/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/evilweevil04/"><strong>evilweevil04</strong></a>, who asked for certain scenes. Title & lyrics from 'Who wants to live forever', by Queen.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Who waits forever, anyway

**Author's Note:**

> This had actually been contemplated some time ago and I decided to finish it for the [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/rounds_of_kink/profile)[**rounds_of_kink**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/rounds_of_kink/) prompt. Dedicated to [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/minttown1/profile)[**minttown1**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/minttown1/), who I first got the idea from their prompt from on [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/hard4brains/profile)[**hard4brains**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/hard4brains/) and [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/evilweevil04/profile)[**evilweevil04**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/evilweevil04/), who asked for certain scenes. Title &amp; lyrics from 'Who wants to live forever', by Queen.

The kid wasn't comfortable with guns at all, but he was proficient enough with things like the bow and arrow, and admittedly excellent at the crossbow. John didn't care _what_ Farrell used, as long as he kept getting the deadbeats right in the head... which he did, consistently enough to satisfy John; because of this, John preferred taking him out on patrol.

Farrell liked to joke that, "You can take the cop off the beat, but you can't take the beat out of the cop. Am I right or am I right, McClane?" John would make a dismissive sound, eyes scanning the darkened road for any of the shambling forms, but yeah, it was true. Funny and true, for sure; once a cop, always a cop, shit like that. Farrell sure could talk, though, and John had thought that with the end of the world, there wouldn't be much to talk about; but Farrell would find _something_.

He was rambling about t-shirts, of all things, something to do with 'threadless', when John spotted his daughter among a swaying group of the deadheads, at the back of an alley.

How he knew it was her, he would never be able to explain to anyone. Maybe it was the way the light from the solar-powered streetlamps shone on the matted fall of her hair; maybe it was the way she was standing, her hands on her hips as if she was just about to start scolding the world at large. Or it could have been the pale curve of her cheek, her face turned away from him.

Whatever had pinged on his parental radar, it was _her_, it was his _daughter_ and John didn't even hesitate. He brought their vehicle to a screeching halt, grabbed a scattershot rifle from the pile of weapons at the back and leaped out.

He heard the kid yell his name and the group of deadheads turned slowly to face them.

"Oh Luce," John groaned, feeling his throat close up at the way her skin hung slack from her face. Her eyes were dull, one of them pointing in a different direction from the other. "Oh, sweetie."

"What the fuck are you _doing_?!" Farrell was screeching and John felt a hand grapple at his shoulder; he flung a look backwards, looking into Farrell's wide, frightened eyes. "McClane?!"

"That's my kid over there," John snapped and turned again, all his focus narrowed to one brilliant spotlight of thought: getting towards Lucy. There was that _snap-thwang_ of the crossbow firing, and one of the deadheads that had been stumbling close fell with a sharpened arrow in his left eye.

"Fuck that, man," Farrell said and John felt his hand curl tightly around his bicep. John just reacted, whirling around to strike; the kid snapped his head back, trying to avoid the blow, but John's fist still managed to skate along his cheekbone and smack into his bottom lip.

"Back off," he growled, because he was going to _beat_ the kid off if he didn't let the fuck go; but Farrell held firm, shaking his head.

"She's dead," he said in a very clear voice, even with his lip starting to swell. His eyes were very large and dark, and he was panting as if he had been doing the New York Triathlon. "You can't save her."

_I can_, something in John said with a deadly kind of determination. _I'll save her if it kills me._ Matt shook his head impatiently as if John had declared this out loud, overly-long hair whipping against his cheeks.

"You can't. _Fuck_." Farrell shoved John to one side, his arm wiry against John's chest, and fired his crossbow again; another deadhead bit the dust. Farrell's fingers tightened around John's bicep again and tugged him back once more. John went this time, and threw a look over his shoulder. His daughter was kneeling on the ground with the other deadheads; they were pawing at one of the fallen bodies, making that low hungry keening sound that seemed to drill into John's head and break into that part of his brain that still hoped his family was alright, that his ex-wife and kids had somehow made it through this insanity.

He set his jaw and drew his pistol, shooting four of them in the head; he didn't shoot Lucy.

He couldn't.

Time seemed to whirl and spin around John when she flicked her gaze up at him; he finally registered the dried blood smeared on her cheek; when she bared her teeth at him, he saw that they were broken and blackened, like rotting stumps in a burnt fence.

"Come on." Matt's hands were on his shoulders, steering him back to the car quickly. John slumped into the passenger seat as Matt sped back home, not registering the grey faces of the abandoned buildings, the crumbled corners of their concrete roofs being touched by the light of a tentative sunrise. This was the time that the living dead were most sluggish, some unknown instinct preparing them for their daily descent an underworld made of the subway tunnels, to continue their restless shuffling.

John let Matt drive them to their safehouse; he let Matt drag him through the quiet hallways to his room (he was far stronger than he appeared). He said nothing when Matt made him lie down in his bed, on top of the covers and then clambered on with him. Matt looked very young, curled up on his side with his hands clasped under his cheek; he looked as young as Lucy, John thought and swallowed hard.

Matt was watching him very carefully and John looked away, focusing on the wall behind Matt's shoulder.

"I'm not going to have a fucking breakdown," he finally told the kid, speaking so stiffly that his fucking lips nearly broke from the strain.

Matt just kept watching him, before saying, "I know," in a voice so quiet that John could barely hear him; he closed his eyes and his breathing slowed down. John looked at his face, the shadows of his dark lashes fanning over his cheeks.

John closed his own eyes, and tried to clear his mind to sleep. It was a habit he had learned in his life before this, in some long-forgotten therapist's office: breathe deep and let those worries filter past. Don't hold onto them, don't worry over them... just let them go on by.

It was hard, for every thought was of Lucy's face.

*

 

_there's no time for us_

>  
> 
> _four months earlier_
> 
> John had found the kid in a small bodega, eyes huge and wild as he popped up over the counter and waved a spray-can of something in John's direction. There was a small cigarette lighter in his other hand, the flame trembling. John, who had broken in to see if he could get some stuff, raised his hands slowly, looking the kid steadily in the eyes.
> 
> "Don't come any closer!" The kid looked as if he hadn't seen a good meal in weeks: his cheekbones were sharp edges pressed from inside his pale skin. John watched his trigger finger begin to depress the nozzle, the lighter wavering closer. "Go away!"
> 
> "I just want some Marlboros, kid," John told him mildly. "And some chips. Maybe some Mountain Dew."
> 
> "What did I say, what the _fuck_ did I say!" The kid's voice was shrill as John took a step to the left, heading towards the appealing pile of chips. "Don't move!"
> 
> John reached under his long, ragged coat and pulled his gun from the shoulder-harness. He pointed it at the kid, who took a step back, his ass bumping onto the shelves of chewing gum and condoms. Nevertheless, he didn't put down his lighter or spray-can, even though his eyes were simply massive with fear. The corner of John's mouth twitched up almost unwillingly.
> 
> "I'm gonna get my chips and my soda, kid, and I'm gonna leave. No harm, no foul. Use your eyes, I'm not some fucking deadbeat."
> 
> He stepped to the side again, still keeping the gun trained on the kid, who kept _his_ 'weapon' fixed on John, even though his hands were shaking. Slipping into a narrow aisle and hoping that the kid wouldn't pull any crazy shit while they were out of each other's sight, he scanned the sad remainder of products left behind by looters. He didn't take any bottles of soda from the quiet, darkened refrigerators, just snagged them from the shelf and picked up some ludicrously coloured bags of nachos. When he made his way back to the broken glass doors, he saw the kid still standing behind the counter, his arms limp against his sides as his dark eyes tracked John's movements. His spray-can and lighter were nowhere in sight.
> 
> John halted, and then slowly reholstered his gun; two boxes of Marlboros lay on the counter, beside the open cash-register. He raised his eyebrows and then flicked his gaze to the kid's tight expression.
> 
> "Get yourself in some high place before dark," John advised as he reached for the boxes with his gloved hands. "Lock up, keep quiet."
> 
> The kid just watched him, his hair long and stringy and flopping in his eyes. John walked out, squinting at the harsh daylight. The wide road was quiet, choked with abandoned cars, and John cut his glance away from the staring gaze of the corpse still seated in one of the yellow cabs. _You're one of the lucky ones_, he told it silently and shifted his stash into a better position, making sure he could pull his gun without a hitch. He began making his way towards the barricaded entry of a small hotel, hiding and protecting a small group of humans who still had most of their wits about them. He walked quickly, pretending not to hear the quiet footsteps behind him. When he finally got to his destination, he turned at the barricaded entrance and stared at the slight form of the kid.
> 
> "Don't make any trouble," John said to him in a flat voice. "We don't need any trouble up in here."
> 
> The kid shook his head quickly, hitching his battered blue backpack on his shoulders. John turned to the boarded-up doors, rapping sharply on them.
> 
> "Who's out there?" A quavering voice said from behind the layers of wood, their accent deep enough to transform _there_ into _theyah_. "Who's out there, gimme a password!"
> 
> "Hell on earth," John said dryly. He felt stupid, giving passwords. Deadbeats didn't have enough of a mind to _remember_ fucking passwords, but it made most people here in the apartments feel comfortable. In any case, there were others out there who weren't deadbeats, but who were just as dangerous, so maybe the passwords weren't so bad. "And I got company."
> 
> The grating sound of the boards being pulled away came to them, and the door opened just a bit. A reddened eye peered out of the slice of doorway.
> 
> "Who you got out there with you, coppah?" It was Mick on duty now, Mick who had been a wino on the street when the virus devoured its way through the millions of inhabitants in New York and the rest of the United States, maybe the whole world, but John wouldn't know. He also happened to be one of the few people with a natural immunity to the man-made disease... just like John. Just like this kid. In any case, there wasn't any United States, not anymore; only a country full of deadbeats.
> 
> "Who I got out here?" John mused softly and then turned his head, gazing right at the pale face beside him. "What's your name?"
> 
> "Matthew," the kid said quickly, and John realised that he wasn't really a kid at all, he was in his mid-twenties; the backpack and the slender frame made him look very young, not to mention the helpless look on his face. "Matthew Farrell. I... I'm from Camden. New Jersey. I thought that... I thought that there might be some help here, like the army or something." He glanced around quickly, taking in the eerie silence of the fading day. "Guess I was wrong."
> 
> "You came by yourself? All the way from Camden?" John asked as Mick removed more of the barricade. The kid, _Matthew_, shrugged slightly and then nodded; _not so helpless after all_, John mused.
> 
> They entered the tall lobby as Mick removed enough of the barricade for them to enter, the carpet still bright and cheerful under their feet. John always felt a strong pang at this point. Once, even only a few weeks ago, hundreds of people had walked over this carpet, people with families and dreams and problems; now, they were all gone. Those fucking scientists had opened a Pandora's box full of death, and they themselves had died before they could close it.
> 
> He pushed this to the back of his mind; it was done, and now they had to survive.
> 
> *
> 
> "I used to work on computers," this Matthew Farrell babbled at John as he found an empty room close to his own for the kid to sleep in, kicking the door open fairly easily. "Whoa, you kicked the door in, just like that. Yeah, but I used to fuck around computers, like, real work. Well, not really _real_ work, but I got money from it, and if the government ever found out what I did, and I think they knew anyway, they just didn't step to me as yet, but the point is, it wasn't really legal, but now... ok, so there's no government anymore, but there's no society either. Which was something I used to think about all the time, and now that it's here, it's kind of freaking me out. So I used to do stuff that was kind of illegal, but now with no-one to say if it's illegal or not, I guess it's all moot."
> 
> John turned his head slightly and gave him an incredulous stare. Matthew blinked back as if he hadn't just breezed his way through an entire... John didn't even know what that _was_, but he thought that it was too damn long for one person to be talking. Matthew shrugged as if John actually said something in reproach; then he stepped into the darkened room and sneezed. Without the cleaning crew, it was musty and cold. He turned and gave John a tired stare. "Do you think it'll ever get better? Like before?"
> 
> "I don't know," John said shortly, and those dark eyes slid away from his, looked around the darkened room and then snapped back. John stepped away, feeling a little unsettled under the pleading weight of those eyes. It was the same look in little Tammy Foster's eyes; she resided a floor down with what was left of her family, and as soon as she heard that John was (or had been) a cop, she had taken to him like a newly hatched duckling. He could save _the whole world_, she obviously reasoned, and her hope burned John every time she smiled faintly at him. "Look, they'll be roaming soon. Better get some rest."
> 
> "Okay." Matthew made his way over to the bed and put his battered bag down, taking a seat beside it. John went over to the little night-table and pulled a candle and his lighter out of the pocket of his jacket; he snapped out a flame and scorched the bottom end of the candle, watching the wax drip a little. He then stuck it on the surface of the night-table, and lit it. The warm light barely filled the room, but Matthew stared at it in grateful fascination.
> 
> Without another word, John walked to the door.
> 
> "Wait."
> 
> John turned, giving the kid a sharp look. Matt approached him and stuck out his hand; he held it there even as John blinked down at it for a moment before he reached out his own hand and took it; Matt's hand was clammy and he squeezed John's hand tightly.'
> 
> "Thank you," was all he said before removing his hand. He tried a small smile and failed a little, before rallying forth again, the corners of his eyes crinkling from the effort.
> 
> John was surprised to find himself smiling back, nodding before he stepped out and went to his own room.   
> 

 

*

 

_who wants to live forever?_

 

"Daddy! Help!"

John thrashed and fought, grimly pushing against whatever bound him. Fuck it, if he had to _punch_ his way through it, he would.

"Daddy!" It sounded as if she was yelling from some dark cell, and John strained from side to side.

"I'm on my way, Luce!" he bellowed. "Hang in there, kiddo!"

 

"John!" That was Matt, and John felt a strange rush of relief. The kid was a talker, but he would help John; they'd have his baby girl out of here in no time. He had always worked alone, but having someone watch his back was kind of amazing. "McClane, come _on_!"

John felt a strange sensation, as if he was being yanked away and then he snapped his eyes open, waking from his nightmare.

Matt's face was over his, his eyebrows drawn together in concern. The curtains were pulled together, but Matt must have opened one of the windows, and a furtive breeze caused the curtains to flutter restlessly. It was about noon, and the silence of the mostly-dead city seemed to press relentlessly against his eardrums.

"It's just a dream," Matt was saying, stroking John's clenched jaw with one tentative hand. "McClane."

John said nothing, simply stared at Matt's dark eyes. Matt leaned forward quickly and pressed dry lips to the same spot he was stroking.

"I'm so sorry, man," he murmured and John felt a dark anger rush up in him, because he didn't want hear any fucking _sorry_; he pushed Matt back and crawled on top of him, settling between his spread legs and pinning him down with his weight. He'd never kissed another man before, but that didn't stop him from attacking Matt's mouth with his own, licking his way into Matt's mouth when his lips parted to let out a gasp.

John broke away and went to suck on the curve of his neck, licking and biting and trying to forget everything but the slightly salty taste of Matt's skin against his tongue. For his part, Matt wasn't doing anything apart from writhing underneath John, arching and moaning slightly. John spared a fleeting thought for the bedroom door; it didn't lock, because of the manner in which they had to open it, and he hoped one of the other survivors wouldn't come blasting in and catch them at this.

But who gave a fuck; nothing mattered anymore. Everything was ending. He groaned when Matt's fingers raked down his back, no doubt leaving reddened welts, before grabbing onto his ass and squeezing. It was fast and rough, cocks rubbing through their jeans and Matt was saying something in a low, rasping voice.

"What?" John said, panting against his neck; he was trying to get a hand underneath Matt's faded shirt, to maybe stroke his thumb over a nipple. "Fuck, what?"

"It's okay," Matt murmured, even as he wrapped his legs around John's hips and kept thrusting up. John moved his head back and stared down at his flushed face; Matt bit his lip, flinging an arm around his neck to drag him close again. "I'm here," he muttered against John's mouth. "It's okay."

John stiffened and came with a hoarse groan. He barely registered Matt bucking beneath him, calling his name and holding him close.

*

After John peeled off his jeans and the come-sticky boxers, and Matt did the same, they got under the covers; wordlessly, Matt let John rest his head on his chest, and stroked a hand down his broad back. The curtains flapped endlessly and the sun continued its relentless duty overhead.

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/vzg/profile)[**vzg**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/vzg/)'s prompts: _zombie apocalypse: near-death situations, protectiveness_.


End file.
